Vodafone and Telefonica’s O2 have done the deed and started the process of merging their mobile telecoms infrastructure, in a similar fashion to the merged EE and Three infrastructure deal last year. Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Ltd (CTIL) is a joint venture created to operate the infrastructure (towers and buildings) of both organisations mobile networks.
This will almost certainly lead to change in the underlying infrastructure of both networks as consolidation occurs, and the new common infrastructure is created to support separate and distinct mobile networks.
It may be in the future that an arrangement such as this will allow access to the shared bandwidth assets, but at the moment, it’s purely the basic infrastructure.
Source: The Register: Vodafone and O2 to merge mobile networks